Alright well the 78 F-250 I've been doing a build on was stolen over night since it's easy to get into it from the rear window that doesn't lock. Lucky for me the cops found it a few hours ago but the ignition is jacked so I'll need to replace that. But here's my question, I want to make sure this does not happen again so I want to add some kind of hidden toggle switch that needs flipped prior to the truck being able to start. Any ideas?

 

A guy on a jeep forum i'm on put 3 switches in a line and ran one one of the ignition wires through them so that the switches had to be in a certain sequence to send power to the main switch.

 

A large power line switch with a red key like on race cars. Try pulling the tumblers first then the outer part. Its easy, just tap the on the 3 notch lock ring on the outside of the dash around the tumbler part and then just un thread it.

As far a a hidden sw, glove box, center of seat, up under there some where, under dvrs side shoulder seat belt cover?

 

A buddy of mine gutted his cigarette lighter and configured it so it needs to be pushed in to complete the ignition circuit. When parked, he just pulls it out to its normal position.

Stealthy.

 

That's a great one HIO, its going in the book.

 

That's actually a really smart way to do it. What I did for now was just a toggle switch to inside the glove box that needs to be flipped on prior to starting since my glove box locks it seemed like a good place but I really like the cigarette lighter idea. Do you how he did it?

 

Nope... He just showed me how it worked. I'll have to ask him next time.

 

I added a switch under the dash in a hard to reach place. For a visual deterrent, I have a club on the steering wheel. If they happen to get through those, I put a lock on the shifter - since I park forward beside the driveway, the only place they'll go is my backyard. Before these I would just pull the coil wire and I also put a lock on the hood.

 

A buddy of mine put a second high beam switch in the floor. He would step on this while starting the car. Looked very natural, the way he did it.

 

Wondering if maybe I should have tapped into a different wire? The one I spliced into my toggle switch needs to be flipped on at all times while the truck is running. Is there any other wire that goes to ignition where it can just be flipped on for a second just to start than can be flipped off? I noticed a yellow wire under there but it's a much thicker wire so I'm guess that's the wire that goes strait back to the battery?

 

^^^ You should use RED with BLUE stripe.

 

Adding to Black79s - I did that on one car but used double throw switches (3 position) so instead of just off/on the thief had to get three switches in the right one of 3 positions - odds of getting the right combination went from 7:1 to 26:1 if my math is right. On VW I had once, I had fog lights activated by an under-dash switch and very prominently mounted a fog-light switch on the dash which was actually the ignition cut-out - figured a potential thief would not be turning lights on voluntarily. That one was tested, by the way, in El Paso - and worked.

 

I like the idea of a series of switches! I would feel more comfortable leaving them exposed on the dash that way.

Are you all using the wire that leads to the starter? I would like to keep the stereo wire hot.

 

That's a cool story, and in El Paso I'd believe that.

 

A quick note here on those steering wheel clubs, a good thief can get one off in fifteen seconds!